thank you senator durbin for your eloquent words. i would like to thank my friends and colleagues, particularly senator feinstein. she has been indomitable in this issue. i will never forget that we talked about this probably every month is the ban expired about how we can get it done. the fact that she is leaving this issue gives us a lot of faith and i would like to say just a word about carolyn mccarthy who goes to bed every night thinking about what happened to her family. she lives a candle instead of cursing the darkness. as you know, we have a long history of working to pass this bill, which included the original assault weapons ban. the crime bill made an incredible bands in criminal violence that was plaguing our country. the successful been of some assault weapons was a key part of that. now, times have changed and so have the capabilities of those who would do us harm. so i applaud senator feinstein for drafting a smart and more robust version of these assault weapons ban, which he has outlined. assault weapons were design